A Magento site driving me crazy... any suggestion is appreciated
-
Hi guys,
this time it's me asking for help :D.
I have a client with a Magento 1.7.0.0 version site: www.mybomboniere.it
I audited it, and found out tons of issues, but the one that worries me more is the fault of canonicalization, which is causing serious duplicated content problems.
I'm not new to Magento, hence, the first thing I did was going to:
First: Going to System > Configuration > Catalog > Search Engine Optimization and setting on "No" the Use Categories Path for Product URLs voice. Doing so I quit all the duplicated product pages.
System > Configuration > Catalog > Catalog > Search Engine Optimization and setting on "yes" the voices Use Canonical Link Meta Tag For Categories and Use Canonical Link Meta Tag For Products.
Doing this I should see URLs with sort parameters having the URLs without them as canonical
The BIG PROBLEM is that even if I did that, I am still not seeing any rel="canonical" tag added to the code. I've tried to figure out the reason of this, but - sincerely - I cannot find one.
Secondly, the client created so many categories and subcategories that - honestly - the best thing would be to start cutting some of them. But one thing is what is correct in theory, another what the client desires, and she does not desire cutting any subcategory.
That means that some risk to be a substantial duplicate of others. The correct choice should be to canonicalized the overly identical subcategories to a main one... but this is not possible using the default Magento functions.So, or using an SEO extension (but, which one is the best for Magento 1.7.0.0.? Yoast plugins seem outdated), or using a solution like the second option proposed in this post: http://www.adurolabs.com/blog/technical/how-to-add-rel-canonical-in-magento.
The doubt is that the post is presenting it in case of products pages, not categories ones. Hence, is it correct also for them, or do you have others suggestions.
Sorry for the long question, but any help will be much appreciated :).
Ciao
Gianluca
-
Hi,
Following some testing, you can actually use the xml update feature for both categories and products individually, the trick is to first remove the existing rel=canonical that is put in if you have those settings turned on for that in the magento admin. So:
<reference name="head"><action method="removeItem"><type>link_rel</type>
<name>http://www.domain.com/oldurl</name></action></reference><action method="addLinkRel"><rel>canonical</rel>
<href>http://www.domain.com/new-url</href></action>You will need to identify the canonical url being inputted into the code, add it to the oldurl bit above and then put in the new url. You can do this in products and also for categories in the custom design tab and then the custom layout update box.
Hope that helps!
-
Hopefully you are nearly there with Lynn's advice but if you do go down the extension route I highly recommend this one: http://www.magentocommerce.com/magento-connect/online-promotions-by-mirasvit-1211.html
-
Actually I take back that bit about the filtered urls. Just checked and indeed they should canonical back to the base category url, so if you find out why the canonical is not showing up you should be good
-
Hi Gianluca,
What an honour
For the product canonical meta tag you have set it up correctly, I assume you have cleared the magento cache, are you sure there is not a php cache/accelerator running also (like apc or similar)? This would also prevent the changes you have enabled from immediately showing up.
The second option in the link you mention will also work, but really the first option (which you are trying now) is more efficient and automatic as long as you do not have duplicate content across different products which ideally you wont. That being said it is worth trying the second option on your sub categories, I believe you can do custom layout updates at the category level also and that should help you!
One thing to clarify: You say you expect to see canonicals on urls with sort parameters, but in my experience you will not. I cannot think of a commercial seo module for magento off the top of my head that will handle correct canonical tags for search and filtering parameters. The easiest way to do it is some custom development work which is not that difficult to do if you find someone comfortable with Magento.
Hope that helps!
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Onpage optimising for multiple sites
I’ve been given the task of optimizing a company’s websites (15 in total) that has multiple websites selling the same product. In terms of optimizing them, can I use the same set of meta descriptions, page title tags and key words for them all or do I need to produce a different set for each? The sites are for independently branded companies that are set up in a franchise-like arrangement. They all exclusively sell the parent companies joinery products
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | aplnzoctober180 -
Canonical tag on a large site
when would you reccomend using a canonical tag on a large site?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Cristiana.Solinas0 -
Should I just redirect all my sites to my main site.
Hi, Over the last few years I have built many sites and own a lot of domain names. Some have high page rank some have high domain authority and some have many back links. I'm finding it very difficult to keep up with all the links and being able to provide quality content for everything. Should I just redirect everything to my one site that make the most money as all sites are for the same industry, but in different categories of that industry. So I could 301 redirect all the sites to the relevant page on my money site. Would it be a problem is 1000's if not 10,000's of links all of a sudden pointed in to one site?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | cibble030 -
What this site is doing? Does it look like cloaking to you?
Hi here, I was studying our competitors SEO strategies, and I have noticed that one of our major competitors has setup something pretty weird from a SEO stand point for which I would like to know your thoughts about because I can't find a clear explanation for it. Here is the deal: the site is musicnotes.com, and their product pages are located inside the /sheetmusic/ directory, so if you want to see all their product pages indexed on Google, you can just type in Google: site:musicnotes.com inurl:/sheetmusic/ Then you will get about 290,000 indexed pages. No, here is the tricky part: try to click on one of those links, then you will get a 302 redirect to a page that includes a meta "noindex, nofollow" directive. Isn't that pretty weird? Why would they want to "nonidex, nofollow" a page from a 302 redirect? And how in the heck the redirecting page is still in the index?!! And how Google can allow that?! All this sounds weird to me and remind me spammy techniques of the 90s called "cloaking"... what do you think?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | fablau0 -
medical site with no unique content
Hi I'm trying to promote an ecommerce site that sells vitamins and health goods. The site owner doesn't want to add texts in the product pages because it is medical material. therefore he Currently has non unique (duplicated) content in each product page' It is the same exact content all others have (taken From the manufacturer)' Any ideas? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeytzNet0 -
How to remove an entire site from Google?
Hi people, I have a site with around 2.000 urls indexed in google, and 10 subdomains indexed too, which I want to remove entirely, to set up a new web. Which is the best way to do it? Regards!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SeoExpertos0 -
Why is Google Still Penalizing My Site?
We got hit pretty hard by Penguin. There were some bad link issues which we've cleared up and we also had a pretty unique situation stemming from about a year ago when we changed the name of the company and created a whole new site with similar content under a different URL. We used the same phone number and address, and left the old site up as it was still performing well. Google didn't care for that so we eventually used 301 redirects to push the link juice from the old site to the new site. That's the background, here's the problem...... We've partially recovered, but there are several keywords that haven't come back anywhere near where they were in Google. We have higher page rank and more links than our competition and are performing in the top 5 for some of our keywords. Other, similar keywords, where we used to be in the top 5, we are now down on page 4 or 5. Our website is www.hudsoncabinetrydesign.com. We build custom cabinetry and furniture in Westchester County, NY just north of NYC. Examples - For "custom built-ins new york" we are number 3 on Google, number 1 on Bing/Yahoo. For "custom kitchen cabinetry ny" we are number 3 on Bing/Yahoo, not in the top 50 on Google. For "custom radiator covers ny" we used to be #1 on Google, are currently #48, currently #2 on Bing/Yahoo. Obviously, we've done something to upset the Google, but we've run out of ideas as to what it could be. Any ideas as to what is going on? Thanks so much for your feedback, Doug B.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | doug_b0 -
Dupicated Site Issues?
We are launching a new site for the Australian market and the URL will just be siteAU.com. Currently the tech team (before we came on board) has it setup with almost exactly the same content (including the site css/nav/structure etc). Some product page content is slightly different, and category pages have different product orders, plus there are location pages that are specific to AU, but otherwise it's the same. The original site: site.ca has been around for 6+ years, with several thousand pages and solid organic ranking (though the last few months have dropped ) Will the new AU site create issues for the original domain? We also have siteUSA.com which follows the same logic and has been live for a while.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BMGSEO0